1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for restoring backup data, and more particularly, to a method for restoring backup data in a mobile device (e.g. PDA).
2. Description of the Related Art
Various electronic apparatus are commonly used in modern life to process our daily activities, such as communication, calendar management, and document preparation. Accompanying with the technology progress, various electronic apparatus are made thinner and smaller for easy carry. The mobile device, such as the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and the mobile phone are the electronic apparatus that are made in consider of easy carry. Usually, the data recorded in the electronic apparatus is critical to the users, if the data recorded in the electronic apparatus is damaged due to any accident, it will be a great loss and will bring a significant inconvenience to the users. Therefore, frequently backing up data becomes a routine job for the users using the electronic apparatus.
For example, since the characteristic of smaller size and versatile functions, the PDA is gradually accepted by the users. In the PDA, the user can build up customer information, send/receive e-mail, manage calendar, roughly edit/read document, and perform like operation with the help of a Personal Information Manager (PIM). The PDA also provides a function similar to the Personal Computer (PC) for allowing user to install various application programs. The PDA can further provide multimedia functions, such as playing MP3 and movies by installing the relevant application programs. Therefore, the important PIM data and the application data generated by various application programs (e.g. Word document files and MP3 music files) are recorded in the PDA. In order to prevent the data from carelessly damaging, a backup program is commonly installed in the PDA for users to backup the important data. The backup data mentioned above is commonly saved outside the PDA, for example, it is saved in a PC which is connected to the PDA via a link.
Analyzing the data/program saved in the PDA, it is found that they can be roughly classified into following categories: the system file/device driver, the registry, the user-installed application program and its related dynamic-link library (DLL), the application data generated by the application program, and the PIM data. The user can restore the backup data to the original PDA at any time with the help of non-regularly backing up the internal data of the PDA. However, it is common that we have to load the backup data of the original PDA into another PDA and restore it therein, for example, in the case of replacing the PDA with a new one. FIG. 1A is a schematic block diagram illustrating the backing up data between different PDAs. FIG. 1B is a schematic block diagram illustrating a PDA 2 of FIG. 1A after the data had been restored to it using a conventional technique. Referring to both FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, it is assumed that the data in the PDA 110 is to be backed up and the backup data file 130 is to be obtained, the data of the PDA 110 is restored into the PDA 120 by using the backup data file 130. Wherein, the system file/device driver 112 is commonly embedded in a read only memory (ROM) inside the PDA 110, thus it is not possible to rewrite it, and it will not disappear due to the PDA hardware reset. Therefore, its backup is not required.
When performing the backup operation, the PDA 110 copies its registry 111, the PIM data 114, the user-installed application program DLL 113, and various application programs and its application data 115 into the backup data file 130. After the backup data file 130 is loaded into the PDA 120, the data in the backup data file 130 is restored, such that the registry 121a, the PIM data 124a, the application program DLL 123a, and various application programs and its application data 125a are replaced with the registry 121b, the PIM data 124b, the application program DLL 123b, and various application programs and its application data 125b. 
The system setup and hardware device drivers among different PDAs are not all the same. Therefore, if the data is just roughly restored (replaced) by using the above method, the system may be crashed due to the difference among the PDA hardware, the system file/device driver, the registry, the application program as well as the difference existed in various application programs.
Further, even the system crash problem mentioned above does not exist, for example, in the case of restoring the backup data to the same PDA, in the conventional art, in order to restore the data, it is required to install a backup/restore program which is used in generating the backup data file (it is because all programs are disappeared after the hardware is reset). Therefore, it is very inconvenient to the user.